The NRL must act to stamp out salary cap cheating which clubs do without fear of serious punishment
THE finals are little more than a week away and yet again the game is facing humiliation. This is becoming a regular occurrence, writes Paul Kent, so the NRL must ask itself why teams continue to cheat the salary cap?
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FINALS SHOCK: Cronulla in salary cap probe
IT is imperative the NRL downs all tools in its business and concentrates on getting through the evidence on Cronulla’s suspected salary cap cheating as quickly as possible.
Cronulla chief executive Barry Russell has no idea what else is among the documents the NRL seized from his club three months ago.
The NRL has claimed it does not have the resources to examine all the documents before the finals, especially given it is busy dealing with Manly’s salary cap appeal.
Yet the NRL also claimed it believes all 16 clubs are salary cap compliant for 2018.
How the NRL can claim that, without having examined every document where there is already evidence of irregularities from previous seasons, remains a question only it can answer.
It certainly sounds absurd.
So the NRL fumbles along, the incompetent leading the incapable.
The finals are little more than a week away and the urgent consideration is whether Cronulla are cap compliant for this season as the game suffers more acute embarrassment.
Fans will be in outrage. Sharks fans against the attacks on their club and rival fans on the unfairness of a team under salary cap suspicion being allowed to continue competing for the premiership.
Sound the five-bell alarm. It is vital there is no suspicion over the Sharks.
This will be terribly difficult for the NRL.
The investigation began earlier this season when Russell, the incoming chief executive, privately audited the books to see what shape his club was in.
Russell found a player was paid $50,000 outside the cap in 2015.
The next assumption was the easy one. What else was happening?
Russell reported to the NRL and the Integrity Unit sent in their forensic experts three months ago and took possession of Cronulla’s entire server.
Since then, investigators have trawled through thousands of emails and phone records on the hard drives.
The NRL is certainly concerned how, after winning the premiership in 2016, the Sharks were essentially allowed to retain their squad, even allowing for the retirement of Mick Ennis and sacking of Ben Barba.
Then it was found the Sharks were several hundred thousand dollars over the cap in 2017.
Cronulla now operate under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of their season.
Rightly or not, every win through the play-offs will be jeered by opposition fans.
Every success will be questioned. Every failing celebrated.
Where are the game’s priorities?
And only once that is sorted the NRL has to ask itself why teams continue to cheat?
The AFL has had one significant salary cap scandal in its existence. Other codes around the world having nothing to compare what is becoming a regular occurrence in the NRL.
Carlton were busted cheating the cap after the 2002 AFL season. The AFL crunched the Blues so severely it crippled them for years.
The punishment essentially amounted to stripping them of draft picks but it kept the Blues from being competitive for years.
That was enough for AFL clubs. Such was the weight of the penalty it scared them all straight.
The NRL had a similar opportunity when Melbourne got busted in 2010. The Storm were forced to return two premierships and three minor premierships.
Much of the game was in shock.
For some time NRL clubs were scared straight.
But eventually they began to look out from behind cover to see the NRL had gone back to sleep on the job.
Small transactions again began taking place. Small transactions became bigger transactions.
Soon clubs with no discipline began offering illegal top-ups through illegal third parties to players and the managers took the methods from club to club and it was a feeding frenzy again.
The unspoken belief is NRL clubs believed the risk is worth it. The risk of being caught is minimal and the punishment survivable
The NRL then doubled down their mistake when Parramatta got caught cheating the cap in 2016.
The Eels were busted for systematic cheating but, in one of the more bizarre decisions in sporting administration, were then allowed the chance to compete for the premiership in the same season in which they cheated.
The NRL argued the Eels were cap compliant so entitled to compete for the title with no regard for the intangible benefits Parramatta received for the duplicity.
Clubs have no fear for the NRL’s wet lettuce punishment.
All this has to be considered in conjunction with the investigation into Cronulla.
Time is imperative.
And there are wider issues that will eventually need to be considered.
Cronulla won the premiership in 2016.
While there is yet to be confirmation the Sharks were guilty of wrongdoing in their premiership year, it is without question that the payment made in 2015 was made to help assemble the premiership-winning squad of 2016.
That is an unfair advantage.
That there is now believed to be evidence that Cronulla cheated last year — bringing it to the season before and the season after their premiership — heaps greater suspicion on their premiership.
It doubles the effort required from the NRL Integrity Unit.
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